The Malaysian Ministry of Education (MOE) has been upgrading infrastructure and consolidating applications behind its School-based Assessment module to enable schools to use ICT more effectively to assess their students.

School-based Assessment (or PBS as it is known in Malaysia) is a holistic and integrated, standard-referenced assessment of students, including physical activities and psychometric tests.

MOE is developing a new PBS module based on Java and HTML 5 which are more efficient and light compared to previously used technologies. Second Education Minister, Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh, added that the new ‘on-demand’ approach in managing the processing capacity at data centres has enabled flexibility in processing capability depending on need.

“This will ensure users will not face issues like auto logout, slow servers or not being able to access the application,” the Minister explained.

The new PBS module has been improved with cache capability which enables PBS to continue operating even when the application is offline. The Ministry has also identified bottlenecks in the capability of the server for the School-based Assessment Management System (SPPBS) for which it has found solutions.

MOE has found that the existing SPPBS application requires a high processing capability due to the use of outdated technology. Moreover, having an extremely flexible data input schedule has resulted in schools entering the data at the end of the year and causing congestion at the data centre.

The PBS module has also been integrated into the School Management System serving as a single window for data entry in schools.

The Minister continued, “The Ministry will implement a data entry policy which is equally flexible but must be carried out periodically in a shorter period of time to avoid congestion at the end of the year.”

The Malaysian Ministry of Education MOE has been upgrading infrastructure and consolidating applications behind its School-based Assessment module to enable schools to use ICT more effectively to assess their students